


on the level

by notcaycepollard



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, ethical non-monogamy, mentioned Lance Hunter/Bobbi Morse, post-cover, suddenly feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-04
Updated: 2015-10-04
Packaged: 2018-04-24 18:14:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,592
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4930030
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notcaycepollard/pseuds/notcaycepollard
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mack's not wrong; Bobbi's a good spy, a great spy, but coming out of a cover, that takes time and effort, and it's easier, it's so much easier, with someone she feels like she's known and trusted and loved for half a lifetime settling her back into her own skin.</p>
            </blockquote>





	on the level

**Author's Note:**

  * For [zauberer_sirin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/zauberer_sirin/gifts).



The night Bobbi gets back from London, it's not Hunter that knocks on her bunk door. It's Mack.

"God, it's good to see you," she tells him, and he grins, leans in for a kiss.

"Figured you might want some help levelling out," he says quietly, and Bobbi nods.

"Yeah, you're not wrong. Cover in HYDRA, god, _that_ was a tense one. Wouldn't mind some help getting back into my own skin." She steals another kiss, and Mack pulls her in.

"What's first?" he asks. "Hair or sex?"

"Sex, definitely," Bobbi laughs, peeling his shirt off. "You've never minded the dark hair, right?"

"Well, I do like you blonde," he teases, strokes his fingers through the curls. "Honestly, Barbara, I like it any damn color you like. You know that, right."

"Yeah," Bobbi agrees, wrapping her arms around him. "Yeah, I know." Mack pulls off her tank top, then, kisses down her throat to her shoulder, and Bobbi slides her hand across the broad plane of his chest, runs fingers down his spine, sinks blissfully into his touch warm and solid and reassuring. Mack's not wrong; Bobbi's a good spy, a great spy, but coming out of a cover, that takes time and effort, and it's easier, it's _so much easier_ , with someone she feels like she's known and trusted and loved for half a lifetime settling her back into her own skin.

(They're maintaining a cover, too, but Bobbi doesn't think about that. She's loyal to SHIELD. _They're_ loyal to SHIELD.)

Mack picks her up, sets her down on the bed, and the way he undresses her, touches her, makes love to her is slow, gentle, worshipful. He takes his time with it all, kisses her shoulders and fingertips and hip bones and thighs. It's not always the way they do things; there've been countless safe houses with frantic, hard sex up against a wall and across kitchen benchtops and in the back of unmarked black SUVs. After the Iliad, she thinks, they fucked desperate and full of furious grief and rage and confusion, still covered in blood and dust and gunpowder. But this, right now, this Mack touching her like she's a thing of beauty, sinking his fingers slowly into her and working his tongue against her clit like he could keep going all night, this is what she needs to feel human again. This is what she needs to feel like Bobbi Morse, loyal agent, and not Bobbi Morse, HYDRA weapon.

When they're finished, Bobbi lies across Mack's chest, listening to his heartbeat, and he strokes her dark hair out until it fans across his skin. 

"So," he says. "Hunter."

"Yeah," Bobbi agrees. "That's a thing."

"He know about this?" Mack asks, his voice still low and calm, like the answer's not a concern. It's actually not, Bobbi thinks, it's really not.

"Please," she says. "Hunter's been jealous of  _some_ things, but never about you. He knows we're a thing. He knows we never  _stopped_ , actually."

"Right," Mack agrees. "And what'll it be, Barbara, three months until you and Hunter are a thing again as well? I need to lay a bet on it or what?" She laughs, kisses his chest, runs fingers down the line of his stomach.

"Probably," she says, rueful, and Mack just smiles, kisses the top of her head.

"So long as we're all clear about it," he tells her. "What about the other thing? You want to bring him in on that?"

"No," Bobbi says, and she can't really quantify why, but no, not yet, maybe never, she's not sure that's the right call. Not until she's scoped out Hunter a little more, at least, seen where his head's at. Mack shrugs his shoulder under her, pulls her up for another kiss, and Bobbi is so ready for round two, and then a box of blonde hair dye.  
  


 

+

 

As soon as Mack is out of quarantine, Bobbi's in his bunk, and Mack gives her a look at first like he's going to send her away.

"I don't know if it's  _safe_ , Barbara," he tells her, and she'd believe him except that there's fear in his eyes and he's holding his body like it's alien, like it's not  _his_ anymore, and Bobbi's heart breaks, just a little bit, because Mack didn't deserve this.

"Seems to me like you need to level out," she says quietly, leaning against the doorframe, and Mack takes a long breath, closes his eyes, clenches his fists briefly.

"Yeah," he says eventually, "yeah." Bobbi crosses the room, leans up to kiss him slowly, and she can feel the moment Mack lets go of the tension, presses into the kiss, and god,  _god_ , she's putting Mack back together, here, but she's putting herself back together too.

(Every time she thinks about pushing her batons into Mack's neck, every time she thinks about him falling a hundred feet into a black cavern, she hears Coulson say, "my acceptable number is zero," and she thinks,  _lie_. Their mission is clear. Their mission is  _necessary_.)

"Bobbi," Mack says against her mouth, " _Bobbi_ , shit, I-"

"I've got you," she tells him, undresses him carefully, pushes him down on the bed and straddles him, begins to roll her hips into it. "I've got you."

Mack comes with his fingers dug hard into the muscles of her thighs, opens his eyes wide in what looks like shock and surprise, and when he starts trembling Bobbi presses her body down against his, holds him close, lets him breathe shakily into her hair until his grip relaxes.

"There's alien crap in my brain," he tells her when he can speak, and his voice is bitter.

"Yeah," Bobbi agrees, "seems like you can join the club. I hear you're on a level with Barton now." Mack's mouth twists, and Bobbi remembers the one time Mack and Barton actually met (in a seedy SHIELD bar in Midtown, she thinks with a secret smile. It did not go well.)

"I don't know how I can- how do I trust myself, Bobbi? This power, it feels so _angry_. You know I'm not good with that."

"No," Bobbi says, "but it'll work its way out. Come spar with me. We'll knock it clear." Mack hums in agreement, drags his palm slowly up her back in a long caress, and Bobbi sighs with pleasure, because  _that's_ the Mack she knows.

"Did you even come?" he asks, and she shakes her head, because they don't lie to each other. "But it's fine," she tells him, "seriously, this was about what you needed." Mack grins, pulls her up, and he's strong enough he can just lift her right onto his face.

"Maybe this is what I need too," he says, looking up at her, and his breath gusts against her clit.

"Oh, well then, by all means," she laughs, settles herself above him, and god, yeah, this is the Mack she knows, too. _  
_

 

+

 

Bobbi's not a hundred percent, and she's training so hard, pushing herself beyond her limits, but maybe she's never going to be a hundred percent again. Maybe not a hundred percent of the Bobbi Morse she used to be.

She hates it. _Hates_ it. Working in the lab's not terrible, and she loves the fact that Fitz abruptly changed his attitude when he realized that Agent Morse, professional secret agent, was also  _Doctor_ Morse, biologist, but she's got a bullet with Grant Ward's name on it, and a secret fear that she might never be a hundred percent enough to get that bullet into his head.

Mack visits her in the lab, teases her about making up reasons to get him there, and the way he looks at her, she knows he's reading it all straight out of her head. They've never lied to each other. Mack  _knows_.

He comes to her bunk the night after Hunter goes, and just sits down next to her, takes her hand in his.

"Hunter's gone," she tells him, and it's not like he doesn't know  _that_ , either, but she feels like it needs to be said out loud.

"You want him to go?" Mack asks, more perceptive than she'd like right now (it's what she needs, Mack always gives her what she needs).

"No," she admits, "no, but it's what Hunter needed to do, right, so..."

"Hunting down Grant Ward isn't Hunter's  _job_ ," Mack tells her, "it's not  _Hunter_ that Ward-"

"Tortured," Bobbi says, because it's true. "Tortured, I think, is the word you're looking for."

"Tortured," Mack agrees. "You want to go after him yourself."

"Yeah," Bobbi says, "I do, I want to see him dead, but I also... He and Kara were so obsessed with  _closure_ , right, and I don't, I don't want to turn into him trying to avenge myself. I lived. Despite it all, despite their shit, I _lived_ , and Hunter lived, and maybe that's enough. Maybe I just have to level out with myself as I am."

"Seems like you're pretty level to me," Mack tells her, kisses her on the forehead, and Bobbi turns in toward him, grabs him by his shirt.

"Keep me on the level, then," she says, "Mack, just, keep me on the level here," and he kisses her eyes, her cheeks, her jaw.

"Yeah," he murmurs, "yeah, I've got you, Barbara, we've got each other, we'll keep each other, alright."

Hunter's ring is warm on a chain around her throat, and Mack's mouth is hot on her skin, and Bobbi thinks, _she's making the right calls, this time_.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> God, I love Mack and Bobbi and their beautiful idealistic faces, and I also love consensual/ethical non-monogamous relationships, so here is that.
> 
> Follow me on tumblr if you want: notcaycepollard.tumblr.com

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [when it's over, you're the start](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6191236) by [nausicaa_of_phaeacia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nausicaa_of_phaeacia/pseuds/nausicaa_of_phaeacia)




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